This blog is dedicated to bringing World War II era documents to the general public, with an overall focus on armoured warfare.
Questions? Requests? Comments? Email me at tankarchives@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @Tank_Archives.

Pages

Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Nomenclature Confusion

Periodically, one can find information online that the M2 Light Tank, namely the M2A4, was shipped to the USSR as a part of Lend-Lease aid. Indeed, 31 "American light M2A4" tanks show up in the "Report on tanks arriving from England for use by the Red Army as of January 15th, 1942".

31 American light tanks just arrived at Arkhangelsk by convoy. The British ordered M2A4 tanks, so maybe they pawned a few off to the Soviets. Seems fairly bulletproof, but things aren't always what they seem.

The mistake is corrected in a later document where the 31 tanks that arrived in January are now correctly called "M3 light". The serial numbers also confirm this, since the last M2A4 had a serial number of 30977.